Sainsburys delivery van crash

[Anenome]

7 weeks ago I was queuing at a junction on Canonbie Rd, when a Sainsburys delivery van overtook and drove into my car, causing over ?3000 damage. It didn?t stop & I wasn?t able to follow but I did get the reg no. Contacted Sainsburys within the hour who confirmed the van was theirs & said they?d ?begun an investigation?. Despite many calls and emails since, including to the store, the CEO & claims dept I?m no further forward.

Any advice or suggestions? Has anyone else had similar experience?

[Ruskin]

It still needs reporting to the police and presume you did so in order to get an incident number for your insurance company?

[IlonaM]

Can your insurer help? Otherwise the potential public embarassment of not acting promptly might spur them into action:

The Saturday Guardian has a problem resolving section in the Money section which seems to get results: 'Anna Tims writes your wrongs. Got a problem you want Anna to look into? Send your dilemmas to your.problems @observer.co.uk '

Or maybe Radio 4's Money Box programme might take up your cause: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1M8DssCcgjtZQlwLCrLBmpM/contact-money-box

[alex_b]

If you?ve reported it to the police abs your insurers then leave them to deal with it. Sainsbury?s aren?t going to say anything to you which there are potential civil and criminal cases ongoing.

[JohnL]

Some companies don't insure - they just pay if they have an accident.

Not sure if that is still allowed as it seems wrong (LOL and I can't find any reference to this - but I know companies did it a while ago - maybe it's been now made illegal)

Also some companies take AGES to pay their bills - just holding on.

[alex_b]

In my experience when companies ?self insure? what is often meant is they take a third-party only policy and then cover damage to their own vehicles themselves or have an extremely high excess. One employer I worked for had a ?10k excess for damage to our fleet meaning we only claimed for write-offs.

There is a way of lodging a ?500k bond with the government to truly self insure, but the risk of being on the hook for a multi-million pound payout in the event of being at fault for an employee causing life long injuries makes it a unattractive approach. Even the really big logistics firms have insurance for third party claims for that reason.

In any case for the OP, their insurer should pursue this on their behalf and will have access to the insurance details for Sainsbury?s via the MIB database.

[Penguin68]

True self-insurance only costs in when your fleet is so large that it would be good business on its own to an insurer - BT with at one time the largest commercial fleet in Europe self insured. Just insuring 3rd party means that (a) damage to your own fleet isn't covered and (b) does not then stop 3rd parties making full claims which must be met if proven. Unless your own fleet is very elderly (or its costs fully written down) this is unlikely to be a good option.